Over 30 weapons emplacements to be built along Kharkov region’s border with Donbass

Earlier, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Gennady Zubko said the construction of fortification facilities in eastern Ukraine was to be over by mid-May

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KIEV, March 30. /TASS/. More than 30 weapons emplacements will be built along the Kharkov region’s border with the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine, Kharkov region governor Igor Rainin told Ukraine’s television Fifth Channel on Monday.

"At the instruction of the Ukrainian president, we are to build weapons emplacements along the line of engagement in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions. The Kharkov region is to build 31 such emplacements along the border with the Lugansk region," he said, adding that the regional authorities had decided not to wait for budgetary financing and launch the construction at their own expenses.

"The cabinet of ministers has allocated financing, but naturally there is a certain procedure for transferring budgetary funds. This money will come later but we must start working right now. We have asked building companies to organize teams and begin the construction, without financing so far. Not a single construction company has refused," he said.

Rainin said that in all there would be 300 weapons emplacements along the frontline, most of them will be placed in the Kharkov, Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk regions.

Earlier, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Gennady Zubko said the construction of fortification facilities in eastern Ukraine was to be over by mid-May. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk pledged the government would allocate 860 million hryvnias /about 37 million U.S. dollars/ for that.

On March 9, Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko said Ukraine was reinforcing the system of defence in its eastern regions. "We are building a strong, deeply echeloned system of fortification structures in the east," he said. The press centre of the force operation said it was planned to build two defensive perimeters "to prevent enemy penetration into Ukraine’s territory." According to the press service, it was planned to build about 1,500 kilometres of trenches and communication trenches, more than 8,000 entrenchments for heavy weapons, more than 4,000 bunkers and a 60-kilometre-long fence of passive obstacles.